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SK Innovation, Korea’s largest energy chemical company, is accelerating its transition to an eco-friendly business model by focusing on the plastic recycling business and expanding its range of eco-friendly products. As part of this initiative, the company launched the “Sanhaejinmi” campaign with the goal of raising awareness about the environmental impact of plastic waste and promoting daily eco-friendly practices. The company’s management and employees participated in creating a campaign song and a music video, which were received well by the general public, especially through social media events. Another key strategy was the implementation of an intensive practice period called “Sanhaejinmi Week, during which employees were encouraged to share photos of their eco-friendly practices on Instagram. Local business sites also played a crucial role by motivating stakeholders in their respective locations to participate in campaign activities. In 2022, the campaign achieved significant engagement, with 266,389 people participating in plogging, which resulted in the collection of a total of 1,202,744 kg of garbage. The post-campaign survey confirmed the success of the campaign in influencing citizens’ awareness of the environmental pollution crisis.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has consistently received the attention of scholars and practitioners in various academic disciplines, including economics, politics, society, and public relations. In this context, the nature of CSR in developing countries becomes an emerging question because of the business expansion of multinational corporations (MNCs) in these countries. Vietnam is a country with a unique political, economic, and sociocultural context, experiencing rapid economic growth despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this paper explores the CSR approaches, government cooperation, and CSR activities of “big-six” enterprises from different industries between 2018 to 2022 using a content analysis to capture and analyze the CSR initiatives. Our research is the first to highlight some theoretical frameworks in the Vietnamese context that contribute to developing global CSR debates.

Based on the stakeholder theory and the CSR communication model, which are informed by models in public relations, this study proposed and examined two key factors of social media strategies that contribute to raising the public's positive perception of stakeholder engagement in CSR, which in turn leads to positive CSR reputation and behavioral intentions. A 2(communication on CSR building strategies: top-down vs. co-creation) x 2 (social media communication strategy: responsive communication vs. involvement communication strategy) full factorial design online experiment was conducted. The results showed that communication about the co-creative approach of CSR development leads to positive perceptions of stakeholder CSR engagement. Stakeholder involvement social media communication strategies also elicited positive perceptions of stakeholder engagement in CSR. The use of stakeholder involvement communication strategies on social media has been shown to partially offset the negative impact of a top-down approach in CSR development. This study demonstrates the impact of two proposed factors on CSR outcomes by linking stakeholder engagement perceptions of CSR with CSR reputation, supportive communication intentions, and purchase intentions, which are in part mediated by trust in commitment. These findings enhance our understanding of how to effectively engage stakeholders in CSR on social media by providing both theoretical and practical implications.

In the field of PR, finding ways to simplify and convey complex information to the general public is a challenging task. From this perspective, LG Electronics’ event “LG ThinQ Escape Cafe,” aimed at making it easier to introduce the smart home platform ThinQ to Generation Z, was a successful endeavor. The planning and execution were meticulously aligned with the target audience’s perspective, effectively stimulating consumers’ emotions. As a result, the event was extended to a season 2, and participants’ voluntary content naturally gained exposure on online portals. In particular, the success of this event provides solutions for companies on how they should convey technology-related content that consumers find difficult to acquire or use. Based on this LG Electronics event, this article aims to provide valuable insight on how to convey complex technology-related information and plan events that can garner a positive response from Generation Z.

The study aimed to test the influence of a certified seal indicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) on perceived CSR, attitude, and supportive behavioral intention. To test the hypotheses of the study, a post-test-only experiment with two conditions (presence vs. absence of CSR-certified seal) was executed using an online experiment, and we recruited participants (n = 157) across the United States. The results indicated that the presence of the CSR-certified seal in the annual report was more effective in generating better perceived CSR evaluation, positive attitude toward the corporation, and behavior intention among the participants than the absence of the CSR-certified seal in the same annual report. A serial mediation test showed that a CSR-certified seal led to increased behavioral intention through perceived CSR and attitudes. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.

The purpose of this study is to identify activists, their communicative behaviors, and the effects of these behaviors on crisis communication in the new media landscape. Adopting a new theoretical framework based on problem-solving characteristics, openness, activeness, and time or history, in the situational theory of problem solving, the current study demonstrates that activists in a crisis situation are more likely to actively engage in information acquisition, selection, and transmission than other publics. In addition, this study finds that activists in a crisis could affect an organization negatively in terms of strong attribution of crisis responsibility to the organization, negative reputation, and less supportive behavioral intentions. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between organizational leaders’ internal communication efforts, employees’ work engagement, and their public relations performance. Findings from a survey of public relations agency employees in South Korea (N = 100) indicate that transparent employee communication, having three dimensions of sufficient and accessible information, accountability/authenticity, participation/ openness, would not only enhance employees’ reputation perceptions toward their own organizations (B = .54), but also foster job engagement (B = .41), and their willingness to adopt an accommodative stance to public (B = .41). Findings are discussed in terms of how organizational leaders (i.e., that include top management, managers, and unit supervisors) can inspire greater workplace performance.

More corporations have participated in the banning of animal testing for cosmetics and shown their values related to this issue to their customers. This study evaluated how these corporations communicated with their customers to receive positive responses from customers even if they had experienced a service failure. This study examined how individual switching behaviors are associated with service failures depending on the type of service failure. This study also investigates the associations between customers' value fit regarding animal testing for cosmetics and their switching behaviors. The findings suggest that switching behaviors are more significantly associated with individual process failure than outcome failure. Also, this study finds that CSR is an important factor in the relationship between service failure and switching behaviors. Theoretical implications and practical contributions are discussed.

An online survey dealing with the purchase of potentially risky consumer products,genetically modified foods (n=379), examined behavioral intention within the framework of the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010). In addition to attitude and social norms, which are subsumed under the theory, predictors examined included cognitive and affective risk perceptions, systematic versus heuristic processing, and two personality traits: need for cognition and need for affect (specifically, the avoidance and approach sub-dimensions identified by Maio & Esses, 2001). Four hypotheses were tested and supported. High cognitive and affective risk perceptions were negatively related to attitude, adherence to social norms and purchase intent. High need for cognition was positively related to systematic processing, while negatively related to heuristic processing. High need for affect avoidance was positively related to heuristic processing, while high need for affect approach was positively related to systematic processing. Finally, higher systematic processing was positively related to both cognitive risk perception and affective risk perception, while higher heuristic processing was not. Awareness was included as a possible explanatory variable that helped explain purchase intent. In order to investigate the relationships between the key variables more closely, hierarchical regression analyses examined the combined effects of the focal and explanatory variable on purchase intent. The final regression model in the study, which explained 29.2% of the variance, suggested that purchase intention was best explained by the need for affect avoidance, low affective risk perceptions, positive attitude, and conformity to social norms. This study proposed a framework in which personality traits based on psychological needs (need for cognition and need for affect) led to different styles of processing. Then, two forms of risk perception (cognitive and affective) together were shown to influence purchase intention ofcommon technologically enhanced consumer goods. The study underscored the importance of looking into both affective and cognitive risk perceptions examining purchase intention for risky products,genetically modified organisms (GMO) foods. This study also illustrated the potential practical importance of the two sub-dimensions of need for affect identified in the literature, suggesting that each can possibly influence the processing of persuasive messages and risk perceptions and ultimately consumer actions.

This study presents a detailed examination of how varying combinations of tone of voice, negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) response strategies (defensive, accommodating, or no action), and prior organizational reputation can cultivate a positive public response. In turn, we offer insights into effective communication strategies for managing and responding to NWOM content posted on social media. As part of this process, an online experiment was conducted using a consumer sample. The resulting findings indicate that strategic communication effectively counters NWOM and elicits positive responses via two distinct pathways—the emotional pathway and the rational pathway. Overall, we found that using a conversational tone as opposed to a corporate tone enhanced perceived humanness in corporate communication, in turn generating more positive relational and corporate outcomes. The challenge of reducing organizational attribution (i.e., increasing external attribution) by integrating appropriate tone of voice and NWOM responses for different reputational conditions can be rather intricate. While reputable companies enjoy greater flexibility in their ability to employ various strategies, with one such example being the adoption of a defensive strategy with a firm corporate voice, companies with a negative reputation should be more careful when making their strategy selection to ensure that they avoid causing further damage.